Mauritania's opposition political parties are expressing
dissatisfaction after the military rulers refused to set a timetable for
elections or guarantee they will not stand as candidates. The parties say the
military junta has reneged on its promise to return the country to democratic
rule after ousting the country's only democratically elected President Sidi
Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi in a coup de'tat. The United States, the European
Union as well as the African Union have unanimously condemned the coup de'tat
and called for an immediate return to constitutional rule.

The U.S has
frozen around $25 million in military and development aid to Mauritania warning
that much bigger sums of future aid is at stake. Kabiru Mato is a political
science professor at Nigeria's University of Abuja. He tells reporter Peter
Clottey that there is need for the military junta to announce their plans for
the future.

"What I find rather
interesting and repulsive is the failure to announce to the people of
Mauritania what programs they have in terms of a new transition time table that
would see to an early election so that a democratic government could be elected
in Mauritania. But again in another breadth that is generally part of the
military tradition whenever they take over power. They don't easily respond
perhaps to the aspirations of the people or the political class unless of
course they are under tremendous pressure to be able to do that," Mato pointed
out.

He urged Mauritanians to put
more pressure on the military junta to return the country to constitutional
rule.

"I think what is important
now is for the political establishment in Mauritania to put a lot of diplomatic
efforts, especially the African Union to not only isolate the new military
government, but force the government to make preparation for an early
election," he said.

Mato said the military junta
should be forcefully impressed upon to hand over power to civilian rule.

"The African Union must go
beyond simple political rhetoric. It must also contend with tremendous
diplomatic pressure on the new government, and there must be a very clear
picture showing to the new government that the Union would not obviously
recognize the new military leadership. They would be isolated and Africans may
even contemplate a possible blockade or certain forms of diplomatic embargoes
and so on and so forth as a strategy to show the new military rulers in
Mauritania that it is serious. If it doesn't go beyond simple political
statement, the soldiers would certainly remain unchecked and they will continue
to remain in power without necessarily perhaps bringing up an acceptable time
table that would see their immediate exit out of power," Mato noted.

He said Mauritania has had a
history of dictators since the country's independence.

"The dominant feature in
Mauritania today is poverty and therefore poverty will always have a very
central role to play in determining the pattern of political system that you
have in that country. And remember that the government that was overthrown by
these soldiers was the first democratically elected government in that country
since its political independence in the early 1960s. So, the problem here has
to do with the fact that the political culture of the people themselves is that
which is closely and neatly tied to dictatorial tendencies and ruler ship," he
said.

Mato said the country has
also been destabilized for a long time after its independence.

"Another thing also is that
Mauritania has a history of political instability over time. So, the concept of
democracy as propounded by the western liberal theory is therefore not very
much grounded with the people of Mauritania. But then the fundamental question
here has to do with the fact that there has to be very conscious political
elite that will apparently mobilize the citizenry towards waging a united front
against military dictatorship," Mato pointed out.